


Let Him Live

by CluelessKitten



Series: If There Ever Comes A Day When We Can't Be Together (Keep Me In Your Heart, I'll Stay There Forever) [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Canonical Character Death, Friendship, Gen, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:34:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24287476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CluelessKitten/pseuds/CluelessKitten
Summary: Distantly, he hears Cal scream.Five years, and it’s all come down to this.
Relationships: Cal Kestis & Prauf
Series: If There Ever Comes A Day When We Can't Be Together (Keep Me In Your Heart, I'll Stay There Forever) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1753282
Comments: 17
Kudos: 79





	Let Him Live

Bracca used to be… Okay, fine, it was always a scrapheap, and everyone with two braincells to rub together knows it. But it was … _better_ , back during the Republic. The pay, the working conditions, the cost of living, it was all good back then. It was worth the work.

A lot’s changed since then. And not all of it for the better.

Prauf knows that someday his generation’s gonna be old, gonna be gone, and all the kids are gonna know about anything is what the schools and the Empire tells them. A generation ago, the Jedi were heroes; today, they’re the worst kind of traitors. Hunted down, locked up or killed, a rich bounty on every single head.

Now Prauf, he’s a simple kind of guy. He goes to work, visits the nearby cantinas, hangs with his coworkers. Just keeps his head down and goes with the changes. He grumbles a bit, like most of them do, when the pay cuts start coming, but it all comes pretty clear that the Empire … it’s something else, that’s for sure. The regulations start getting enforced pretty harshly, prices soar, and the workers start needing overtime just to keep up.

It didn’t really help that he suddenly found himself in charge of a tiny human.

Yet, somehow, it’s the one really good thing to come out of the whole mess.

Little Cal appeared the same day the rumors of the pay cuts started, the same day management suddenly got an overhaul, the day the Empire took over. If Prauf was a superstitious man, he would’ve maybe thought that the kid he found stuck in one of the scrapyards was an omen. But even if he was one, he likes to think he would’ve concluded that the Empire brought crap luck on everyone and Cal fell victim to it a little more than the rest of them.

An orphan, wandering around on Bracca for no apparent explanation, with no guardian, who got nightmares every night that reduced him to tears. Sometimes, despite the walls that separated them, Prauf could’ve sworn he heard Cal mutter something that sounded suspiciously like ‘master’.

But he never asked, and Cal never told. Prauf didn’t let it bother him, even when his coworkers strung up elaborate theories about his mysterious arrival.

Kids are kids, no matter where they come from. You’re supposed to look after them. That’s how it goes.

And that’s exactly what Prauf did.

Is doing.

…Will have done.

Has it really been five years?

The soldiers have made everyone in the train car line up in a neat little row. Their uniforms are … ominously dark. Unfamiliar. A lady in a strange, black mask approaches.

This is not a contraband inspection.

They’re all going to die; the Imperial woman says as much. But they don’t have to. Not unless Cal comes forward or someone turns him in.

 _I know the risk you took for me_.

Prauf grits his teeth and steps forward. He feels Cal’s hand grabbing him, hears the kid’s little gasp over the pounding of his heart, the cold splashes of rain. He almost turns, almost looks at Cal, maybe to reassure him, maybe to get one last look – but he stops himself. He can’t look. He can’t give him away more than he already has.

This is all his fault.

He says everything he’s wanted to say for the last five years under the Empire’s miserable employ. He’s never been much of a public speaker – he’s an _engineer_ , for crying out loud – but he tries to make a kind of grand speech out of it. A last stand, of sorts.

It’s pathetic. He doesn’t know what he’s doing or what he’s hoping for. There are too many soldiers, too many weapons, and Cal–

Cal’s just a kid.

The woman lets Prauf say his piece, his last words, and a small part of him is disgustingly grateful for it. He walks up next to her, easy as you please, pulse drumming in his ears as he gestures towards her. For a long moment, he lets his eyes rest on Cal, one last look.

 _Chin up, li’l buddy_ , his own voice echoes in his mind, words from days long past. _No need to be nervous_.

The rain is cold.

Cal’s grown so big.

“To the Empire, we’re all just expendable!”

Smooth as silk, she stretches out her hand in front of him, a slim rod-thing in her grip.

_Is that–?_

“Yes, you are.”

A red beam of light hums to life and burns right. Through. Him.

It hurts, but he can’t move, can’t speak. For a moment, he’s blind, deaf, and numb to everything except the glowing blade lodged in his chest.

Distantly, he hears Cal scream.

Five years, and it’s all come down to this.

 _I’m sorry_.

But then, Cal raises his hand and a bright, blue light emerges. Prauf gazes at it in wonder, the tight feeling in his chest easing even as the darkness closes in.

Cal has a lightsaber.

There are so many sensations and so much _pain_ as Prauf falls to the ground like a limp ragdoll.

But Cal has a lightsaber. Cal can fight them off; there’s not a doubt about it in Prauf’s mind.

And like a candle in the night, one thought glows bright and warm even as everything around him fades into nothingness.

_The kid’s gonna be okay._


End file.
